Outbox Onlinehttp://www.outboxonline.com
Sat, 10 Dec 2016 01:33:36 +0000enhourly1Blogging for Authors 101 – How a Blog Can Help Bring New Readers to your Bookshttp://www.outboxonline.com/blogging-for-authors-how-a-blog-can-help-bring-new-readers-to-your-books/
http://www.outboxonline.com/blogging-for-authors-how-a-blog-can-help-bring-new-readers-to-your-books/#respondWed, 07 Dec 2016 09:35:15 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=27277I have a similar conversation with lots of my author website clients — it starts a little something like this: “Do I really need a blog? I have no idea what I’d write about!” Sound familiar? Lots of authors feel this way — despite choosing to be writers, they don’t see the value in writingRead more

]]>I have a similar conversation with lots of my author website clients — it starts a little something like this: “Do I really need a blog? I have no idea what I’d write about!”

Sound familiar? Lots of authors feel this way — despite choosing to be writers, they don’t see the value in writing for a blog, and don’t know what they might write about that people would care to read.

I think it’s important to reframe the question a little bit, and to do that you first have to understand what a blog can bring to the table for your exposure online:

our site is made up of a bunch of pages — the Home page, your About page, a Press page, a Contact page, etc… and ideally you’ve considered what your keywords might be for those pages so that when people search for things online, and your offering is a good fit, your site comes up in search results. It’s, of course, more complicated by things like how popular your site is, where it’s linked from, and how many people are searching for your phrases & how often, but that’s the gist of it. As an author, one of your key phrases might be about your genre, like “Historical Romance set in WWII”, or it might be about your characters, like “book with strong female protagonist”, or it might be topical, like, “book about learning a new language in retirement”. At the end of the day, those phrases are things that people are likely to search for, and search engines will match up searches with your site if they’re in place. Where blog posts come in is that you’re only going to have a few key phrases that you can use on your site — one for each of your pages. Imagine if you could have lots and lots, though — ones that are a little more specific, or for a subsection of your audience, or on a very particular subject? Well, that’s what blog posts allow you to do. Each blog post, just like the pages on your site, should have a key phrase (or topic) — and that phrase should be in the post’s title (and therefore URL), and in its text as well. Over time, even if you don’t write blog posts that often, you’ll end up with a sizable repository of keyword-rich content that will bring more search traffic to your site.

ut what about the 2nd part — the part about, “but what do I write about?!” The answer to this question has more to do with what you LIKE to write about. If you like chatting with other people about the writing process, and your readership is interested in how you come up with your characters and what they’re based on, then write about that. If you like researching your stories and find lots of interesting tidbits online that your readership would value, then write about that. If you write nonfiction and there are interesting developments in your industry, write about that. But no matter what you write about, make sure it’s something you’re interested in. There’s little worse than reading a blog by someone who clearly doesn’t want to be writing it, or doesn’t put any of their personality into it at all. And beyond writing about those topical things, make sure you’re also writing about events that you go to where you did a reading or signed books at a convention or met readers. Share photos of those circumstances — people will be more interested in what you’re doing if they feel like you are including them in what’s happening.

There’s also commonly a follow-up question, which is: “Where does social media fit into this?”

If you think of your website as a repository of information that you can point people to, either directly via your URL or by search, then social media is the way you tell people about it and have conversations about it. For example, let’s say you write about blog post about how you came up with a popular character — maybe you share the inspiration behind the character and some images you found that helped you flesh them out — once that blog post is published you then go to your Facebook page or Twitter profile or Instagram profile and you tell people about that blog post and link back to it. If it’s a visual platform, like Instagram or Pinterest, maybe you share an photo of the inspiration board you created or some notes you took. To encourage engagement (ie: comments) you can ask a question when you post, like, “what’s your favorite thing about this character?”. Once you have enough of a following (because you’re sharing interesting content) then hopefully people are sharing and liking your posts to bring even more people to your books.

Something that often helps me better understand how I might take advice and put it into practice is to see examples — with that in mind, here are some examples of authors with great blogs:

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/blogging-for-authors-how-a-blog-can-help-bring-new-readers-to-your-books/feed/0Authors on the Web – There is No One-Size-Fits-All Author Platformhttp://www.outboxonline.com/authors-on-the-web-website-author-platform/
http://www.outboxonline.com/authors-on-the-web-website-author-platform/#respondWed, 24 Aug 2016 09:02:08 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=22238I give lots of advice on this blog to authors on the web. It’s because I make my living building websites and recommending how to create successful author platforms, so I’ve seen lots of examples of what can be successful and what might not work as well — and I like sharing information for theRead more

]]>I give lots of advice on this blog to authors on the web. It’s because I make my living building websites and recommending how to create successful author platforms, so I’ve seen lots of examples of what can be successful and what might not work as well — and I like sharing information for the sake of others. Many of my blog posts are based on questions I’m frequently asked by my clients — and lots of them offer up recommendations preceded by “it depends.”

And this is because there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to author websites & platforms. Yes, there’s often minimum criteria for the kinds of content you want to include, and yes, there are solutions out there that package “best of” functionality, but I often hear from author clients that they don’t fit neatly into these offerings. So what’s an author to do? Especially one who isn’t represented by a big publishing house with lots of resources, is just getting started, or has a limited budget.

My advice is two-fold:

1. Take everything you read about from experts (including myself) into consideration, and figure out what’s right for YOU. I’ve written about strategizing your author website here — and the principle is the same. If you hear/read advice and it doesn’t apply to you, or you’re working off of a checklist that someone else created and ticking boxes just to make sure they’re ticked, your not really considering the best strategy for what you want to achieve. Absolutely there are lessons to be learned from the success of others, but like with everything else in life, everyone is unique. Figuring out your own strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, goals and strategies (in a realistic way) isn’t something woowoo — it’s just thinking through why certain features or content might be utilized, then identifying the ones that are best for you. If you need help to think that through and have someone give you objective feedback, you can easily hire consultants who will do that with you.

And even if you do hire an expert to help you, you’ll want to do the simple exercise of writing down your own checklist for what’s important to you for your project — here are some examples of what might be on that list:

Raise your author profile and enhance searchability

Connect with your audience to build community

Establish a speaking career associated with your expertise

Drive sales of your book

Find a publisher

And there are lots of ways to go about achieving those kinds of goals, and figuring out the best way for you make look different than someone else. This may be because of the time you have available, your skill set, your budget, or where your audience is. But if you know why you want to do something it makes it much easier to determine whether a potential solution is right for you.

2. When you’re evaluating a solution to figure out if it’s a good fit for you, try to identify the features you know you want to have and consider whether the way in which they’re presented is a good fit. Here’s an example: If you’re looking at an author template and you’re a big Twitter user — meaning you have a big following there and are regularly engaged with your audience — and all the theme offers is a the little bird icon in the header that links to your profile, then it might not be a good option. This is because there are other templates that have a built-in Twitter feed that show your posts right there on the page in an attractive way and allow Twitter users to follow you without leaving your site. So while the author template says it offers social media integration, it’s not the kind of integration that will serve you best.

And while flexibility with it comes to the visual design of the site — such as color theme options or font options — are nice, they’re less important than functionality that will serve you well. So certainly don’t discount how a prospective solution looks, but don’t let that be your only consideration.

***

Figuring out your strategy involves putting on a marketing hat, which isn’t always a favorite activity for writers, so I encourage you to think about it the way you strategize the writing of your book — along the way you need to figure out how to create the desired outcome of your story by leaving things out or reordering or rewriting — all with an eye towards creating an overall experience that will resonate with your audience. Everything that remains serves the story — you think about what you want the story to be, then you figure out how to get there. The process of creating your author platform is no different. Investing in the time & thought needed to create your strategy, and re-evaluating periodically, will never be wasted. But moving forward into creating a platform that you don’t fully understand or that doesn’t serve you well is time that’s difficult to get back.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/authors-on-the-web-website-author-platform/feed/0When to Build an Author Websitehttp://www.outboxonline.com/build-author-website/
http://www.outboxonline.com/build-author-website/#commentsTue, 19 Apr 2016 12:35:00 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=18274One of the questions I’m frequently asked in my first conversations with clients about their new author websites is when should they have their new site ready. I most often talk with authors months ahead of their book launch, which allows plenty of time for strategy and creation, but the actual launch date comes downRead more

]]>One of the questions I’m frequently asked in my first conversations with clients about their new author websites is when should they have their new site ready. I most often talk with authors months ahead of their book launch, which allows plenty of time for strategy and creation, but the actual launch date comes down to a handful of considerations:

How important is it to you to build a following (including search engines) for your project?

At what point will you be publicizing materials with your URL on/in them?

Do you have any sort of author brand or cover art complete?

I’ll break these down one at a time…

1. How important is it to you to build a following (including search engines) for your project?

Unsurprisingly, most people want to build as big a following as possible. But sometimes when you talk with authors about what that might entail, they are less enthusiastic about the steps involved.

It’s a myth for most people that you can create a website, even a truly beautiful one with content designed to be searchable, and just drop it online and people will flock to you. I suppose that’s true if you’re already a bestselling author, but if you’re just starting out or are looking to grow your audience, you need to have a strategy to connect with your target audience in a way that will resonate with them. Perhaps it’s through blogging, or social media outreach, or videos, or some other content-creation mechanism — but regardless of the path you choose, it often takes months to establish yourself enough to notice a significant traffic increase.

Making yourself stand out in the crowd of other authors, and also the rest of the noise on the internet, requires dedication and perseverance. Just like there is no “best” social media platform for authors other than the one you’re willing to use regularly, there is no “best” way to go about this — ultimately the best for you is whatever you’re willing to actually do. Connecting with your existing and potential audience by creating content they’re interested in knowing about and sharing with friends is critical.

And you can start doing this well before you have a website, but it should be strategically integrated into your website to make it easy for you to continue on when the time comes. Bottom line: start AT LEAST 6 months before your release date.

2. At what point will you be publicizing materials with your URL on them?

This might sound obvious, but I’ve talked with lots of authors who haven’t even considered this question. If you have a publicist, make sure you know the date by which you should have an online presence. And even if your full website won’t be available, it’s easy to create a temporary landing page with basic information on it and a message like, “watch this space!” that can act as a landing page in the meantime.

Your URL might go out to media outlets, or reviewers, or even potential publishers via Press Releases, social media outreach or direct outreach. And if there’s nothing there when someone visits it, that’s bad news.

This also means you need to consider what your domain name will be even before you start to think about your website. I suggest, at a minimum, that all authors own their name, and the name of their book (and add the word “book” to it if it’s unavailable). Domain names are cheap these days so you can tuck them away for whenever you need them. And any domain name you own can have a “permanent redirect” on it (for free) pointing anywhere — so decide which one will be your main one, and permanently redirect the others to it — which means you can use all of them however it makes sense to you. And consider that URLs are highly searchable — so if you buy domain names that have searchable terms in them (and by this I mean what people might search for if they don’t already know about you, like, “medicalthrillerbooks.com”) that’s helpful too.

3. Do you have any sort of author brand or cover art complete?

Before you jump into creating a website, you should consider your author brand, because what you decide should influence the shape your website takes (and not the other way around). This doesn’t have to be particularly complicated — just give some thought to your target readership and what they are likely to enjoy about reading your books. Maybe you bring unexpected humor, or you’re quite gregarious, or you’re a notorious introvert — jot down the themes that define you as an author, or what you WANT to define you as an author.

That information will allow you to figure out what kind of website you need and how you might promote yourself online. This is especially important if you don’t already have your cover art finished as you can use visual elements (colors, fonts, graphics) that echo your brand ahead of showing your cover art. If you do have book art complete, then you’re definitely within the time period in which you need an author website.

***

At the end of the day, you really can’t start too early. Even if you modify your plan along the way, at least you’ve gotten started. And your website should always change along with you anyway. Building an online audience can happen even if you only have a concept — the idea is to engage people and keep them interested — then when it comes time to launch your book you don’t have to start from scratch.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/build-author-website/feed/2The Best WordPress Themes for Authorshttp://www.outboxonline.com/the-best-wordpress-themes-for-authors/
http://www.outboxonline.com/the-best-wordpress-themes-for-authors/#respondWed, 20 Jan 2016 06:27:47 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=12223There are so many WordPress themes out there — how do you select the best one for you? As an author, you have some specific criteria the theme needs to meet to create a great author website, but before we get to that, let’s go over the criteria I use for ANY WordPress theme I’mRead more

There are so many WordPress themes out there — how do you select the best one for you?

As an author, you have some specific criteria the theme needs to meet to create a great author website, but before we get to that, let’s go over the criteria I use for ANY WordPress theme I’m considering using to create a site:

It wasn’t just released a few days ago. You want to make sure that any theme you’re considering using has a good track record, and that includes being around for a little while. You want to make sure enough people have already used it that the theme creators have worked out the kinks before you commit to it. A good rule of thumb is the 6-month-rule — if it was released less than 6 months ago, leave it on the shelf for a bit. Even if it has the coolest, most up-to-date features ever.

It’s well reviewed. You want to purchase your theme from a source that allows themes to be reviewed. These reviews provide a way for those who have used the theme to comment on how well its worked for them and how well its been supported when things went wrong. Both are important for you to know the likelihood that the theme will also work well for you.

It’s well supported. Make sure that the theme creator(s) actively reply to comments and support requests — you want to make sure they’ll answer your questions or concerns if anything comes up. Also make sure the theme has been updated recently — just like WordPress and Plugins update themselves regularly (like the apps on your phone) to fix bugs and security issues, and to add features, you want the theme creators updating their theme to be compatible with new WordPress developments. If a theme was created 18 months ago, but hasn’t been updated since, that’s not a good sign.

It’s responsive / mobile compatible. This often goes without saying for modern websites, but you want to be sure it works well from the smallest display (eg: phone) up to a large display (eg: huge desktop monitor), and you want to pay particular attention to the behavior of the features you plan to use most often and how they behave in each scenario. You can easily grow/shrink your browser window to mimic this while looking at the theme demos.

It’s easy to update / maintain. Does the theme offer a way for you to more easily update the page layout using templates or a visual composer/builder? What about updating the theme itself, do you have to do that via FTP or is there a built-in interface within WordPress?

It provides the functionality you want. If you know that a blog will be a big part of your marketing plan, or that you’ll use Twitter frequently, you’ll want to look for outstanding features & design that support what you plan to use the most.

It allows you to change the focus of your site without starting again. If the focus of a theme is too narrow, or you start out with just a blog but want but add lots of pages in the future, you want to be sure it’ll be easy for you to modify the shape of your site without starting with an entirely new theme. Often WordPress themes are described as being very easy to swap out, one for another, and that’s true when you’re just starting a new site. But once you have lots of content in place, it may be very easy to change the theme, but very difficult to make your content look equally good in both. You may end up basically needing to start again with your page content to get the same text and images looking great in your new theme. So consider starting with more functionality than you may need at present for the sustainability of your site.

Once you get past this basic criteria, it’s time to start thinking about what content & functionality you’ll need on your author website. You’ll want to read this post about what to include in author & book websites to help you determine the kind of content that will work best for your project.

***

Here are specific WordPress theme features to look out for as an author:

Color scheme & visual design. You want your book cover art to stand out. This means you want a color scheme option that either coordinates with it, or is neutral enough so that people notice your books & not the site’s design. And if you have multiple books, you want a color scheme & visual design that works equally well with any of your covers.

It’s not too reliant on photography. There are really wonderful looking themes out there that very heavily rely on beautiful photography. Now, if you’re a photographer (even if it’s a hobby) and you feel confident about your ability to edit photo dimensions and resolution to get the images your site needs you’re all set. Alternately, if you are working with a photographer who can do that for you, you’re also all set. You can get some outstanding images of your book covers over neutral backgrounds so that text is easily legible over part of them, then use them as featured images and backgrounds. If you can’t do that, then consider that photo-heavy themes won’t be a good fit for you. It’s possible a theme can use photos beautifully, but also work well without them, and if that seems clear to you from the theme demo it’s a good choice. But a better choice is a theme that can show you an example of a landing page that can feature a product (ie: your book) without spending a fortune on photography.

Social media integration. It’s likely that you’re using at least one social media platform to market your book, and you’ll want to make sure that readers can visit your site via social media links, but also that readers who visit your site can easily follow you on social media – it’s two sides of the same coin. Even better than a link to your Facebook page or Twitter feed is a widget that allows people to follow you right from your website. You can often add this by embedding a widget provided the social media platform, but some themes have built-in integration with social media platforms that looks great with that theme, in particular with Twitter or Instagram feeds. Be sure to look at the options the theme provides, including how easy it is to add a new profile if you decide to use more or a different one in the future.

E-commerce. For purchasing your book via Amazon or iBooks all you’ll need is a link, but be sure to look at the designs for things like buttons to which you’ll add those links — some allow you to put an icon in the button to differentiate the retailers, but you’ll want button designs that are attractive and easy to draw readers’ attention to. And if you’ll be selling the book yourself directly from your site, see if the theme offers easy e-commerce integration via something like WooCommerce. Make sure to check if it works equally well for a single product as it does for a fully-fledged store.

Mailing list signup. If you use a popular mailing list service like MailChimp, there may be an integration built into the theme. If not, it’s usually easy to embed the code, but does the design allow you to create an attractive call-to-action in which to put it?

Contact form. You may just want to put an email address on the site, but if you’d like to use a contact form, what does it look like? Can you easily adjust it to your needs?

Testimonials/blurbs. Make sure it’s easy to add testimonials/blurbs to your site so that they’re prominent and nice looking. There’s little worse than having a GREAT blurb, and no way to show it off.

Some of this functionality can be handled via plugins, but often you’ll get a better result if it’s built into the theme — both for design and compatibility reasons.

***

With all that said, here are some WordPress themes to consider if you’re creating an author website yourself:

Enfold
This is a great multi-purpose theme that has been a best-seller for awhile. And with good reason — it’s a pleasure to use, is very flexible, and provides all the features you need in an elegant way.

Jupiter
This theme has lots of options, and is especially good a media (like videos). You’ll need to spend a bit more time getting used to it & setting it up because many of the features may be outside of the scope of what you need, but you’ll end up with a great result.

Note that all these themes are premium themes, meaning you pay for them. There are also great free themes out there, but none are as beautiful and flexible as the premium options (IMHO) — it’s worth it to do your research then pay the price to have something beautiful that meets your needs rather than trying to cobble together something free that gets close. Remember that while Frankenstein’s monster was functional, you likely wouldn’t characterize him as professional, elegant and easy on the eyes.

If none of the above themes strike your fancy, you can also look for a theme you like best using ThemeForest, my favorite premium theme retailer.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/the-best-wordpress-themes-for-authors/feed/0Using Google Image Searches for Author Website Searchabilityhttp://www.outboxonline.com/using-google-image-searches-for-author-website-searchability/
http://www.outboxonline.com/using-google-image-searches-for-author-website-searchability/#respondFri, 15 Jan 2016 06:05:44 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=4876As an author, there’s a natural fit for what images you might use on your website: your book cover(s) & your author photo. But did you know that the filename of those images and the Alt and Title tags you included when adding them to your site are huge influencers of their searchability? Let meRead more

]]>As an author, there’s a natural fit for what images you might use on your website: your book cover(s) & your author photo.

But did you know that the filename of those images and the Alt and Title tags you included when adding them to your site are huge influencers of their searchability?

Let me explain what those things are one-by-one:

I’ve included a sample image here in this blog post. The filename of this image is “Author-Website-SEO.jpg”, and that’s because I’m creating this blog post to help authors make their websites more searchable. I named the image when I created it with the idea that if an author is looking for help, they’re likely to search for something like “Author Website SEO”, and I want this blog post to show up as a resource for them.

When someone searches that phrase, they’ll get text-based search results, but they’ll also get image-based results. If you’ve never tried this, go do a Google Search right now for that phrase — you’ll see options just below the search box that let you show results that are Images, News, Videos, etc..

If you click on Images, you’ll see the results change from text to showing you images:

And sometimes when you search for a phrase, you’ll get both kinds of results — with a sample of images shown above the text results. The filename is a large part of why the images that show up in image-based results are there — search engines can’t actually see your images, the only info they have to go on are the filename, the page/post on which the image is found, and the Alt and Title tags added when the image is added to the page/post. So all of that information is utilized when it comes to search engines indexing images online.

So, what are Alt and Title tags? Alt tags and Title tags are added in the code when an image is added to a website page or post. Even if you don’t see the code that’s being created for you, behind the scenes it’ll look like this:

Alt tags were originally created for people using screen readers. People with visual impairment use the internet, and screen readers help them navigate an often visual world — when encountering an image on the page, if an Alt tag exists, the screen reader reads the Alt tag which describes the image, and if it’s left blank screen readers skip over it. We’ve already established that search engines don’t see images, so they factor in the Alt tag as they’re meant to describe the images when it comes to indexing them. Search engines also use the Alt tags of images as a factor when helping index the page or post that contains the images, as the images are likely contextual to the topic of the page or post.

Title tags are similar in construction, but have a slightly different function. If you’ve placed your mouse over an image on the internet and a small box displays with some text in it, that text is the Title tag — it’s sometimes called the “Tooltip.” It’s not required, and is not as important as an Alt tag for searchability, but is a simple addition that can only help you.

The Alt tag and Title tag should be the same — both describing the purpose of the image — and the filename should be similar, but perhaps using a connector like a hyphen (-) since spaces don’t work elegantly in file names. And just like choosing keywords for your pages and posts, you want them to be more specific than generic as that will get you closer to your target audience. Wordpress makes it very simple to add both tags, and you’ll see the option to add them when you upload an image:

Here are a handful of examples that might apply to an author website:

If you’re uploading your book cover image to your site, make sure the filename is the title plus the genre plus the word “book” — like: Book-Title-Medical-Thriller-Book.jpg, then the Alt and Title tags would be “Book Title Medical Thriller”

If you’re uploading an author photo to your website make sure the filename is your name, and then add your genre and the word “author” — like: Firsname-Lastname-Romance-Author.jpg”, then the Alt and Title tags would be “Firsname Lastname Romance Author”

And don’t forget about other images that you might add:

Photos from Events, like signings or conferences. You might add an image called “firstname-lastname-childrens-book-signing.jpg” with Alt and Title tags, “Firstname Lastname children’s book signing” — replacing the name and genre which what’s right for you

And following the same rules you might add photos of places or things that inspire your writing, or where you write, or the proofs of your book when they arrive, or your readings, or of your book in a book store display, or use a site like Canva to create images of quotes you love — you’re only limited by your imagination here

You have a great opportunity to help your author site searchability by including images in your website pages and blog posts, and it’s very easy, so there’s no excuse not to. Not only will you have a leg up on other websites that don’t use images on their pages, but if you name them strategically you’ll have a leg up on sites that use images, but haven’t optimized them.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/using-google-image-searches-for-author-website-searchability/feed/0Author Websites for Experts: Recommendationshttp://www.outboxonline.com/author-websites-experts/
http://www.outboxonline.com/author-websites-experts/#respondTue, 15 Dec 2015 03:14:13 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=6906Many experts in their field, be it scientific, business-related, personal-growth-related, or otherwise, often write a book at some point in their career. Either they self-publish as a way to create a resource cataloging their knowledge to-date to share with others, or they’re tapped by a publisher to do the same. Author websites for experts areRead more

]]>Many experts in their field, be it scientific, business-related, personal-growth-related, or otherwise, often write a book at some point in their career. Either they self-publish as a way to create a resource cataloging their knowledge to-date to share with others, or they’re tapped by a publisher to do the same.

Author websites for experts are a little different than author websites for novelists as you need to establish the author’s expertise for the audience outside of their skill at writing engaging content, and that’s all about creating trust.

Also, since writing a book as an expert often goes hand-in-hand with giving presentations or being an educator, it’s important to introduce the author as a person so that their personality comes through. You can do this by writing the website copy in the first person, but you can also share great photos of the author doing what they do best. Both of those contribute to establishing trust too.

And all of this must be done without compromising the overall author website goals of making people more aware of the book to increase sales.

Here are some tips for what website content you might include for an author expert:

Think of the book as one of the primary resources you have to offer. This means featuring the book along with text that talks directly to your target audience about how the book will help them. You want to establish not only that you’re an expert, but also that you understand how to apply your expertise to help your target audience. Your goals may vary — you may want to educate, or entertain, or provide resources, or all of the above — but the idea that your book is meant as a resource to help your target audience should never waver, nor take a back seat to your author brand, even if you’re already famous.

Show evidence of expertise. Maybe there are photos and/or videos of you giving a lecture or presentation, or facilitating a workshop, or doing hands-on work in a lab — make sure you collect this kind of content so that you can share it. And you’ll be able to share it not only on your website, but via your social media (and other) outreach. If you don’t already have this kind of content, hire a photographer or videographer and start to compile it. Demonstrating that you practice your expertise and that it’s well received contributes to how much people trust you to help them.

Gather testimonials. As an expert in your field, often you have peers, mentors, or customers who have had a great experience working with you. Ask them to give you a short blurb about why they love working with you or how your expertise is a game changer, then use those on your site strategically. For example, if you have a blurb that talks about what a great speaker you are, make sure it’s next to the content that talks about hiring your for speaking engagements. Not only does this help create trust, but it also helps people see how they might be helped by your expertise.

Make it easy to write about you. Often, experts are tapped by journalists for articles or interviews, and you want it to be easy for them to find out how to book you for this type of work. Not only do you want to provide contact information specifically for people to contact you for articles or interviews, but you want to provide links to articles and interviews that may already exist. You also want to provide a short blurb about you that will help journalists introduce you to their editors and audiences if they don’t already know about you.

Offer your services or resources (beyond your book) to your audience. If you want people to hire you to speak at their events, or lecture at their school, or teach a workshop, or run a webinar, or write for their journal, etc… you need to list that these are things that services that you offer. And you need to provide a way for them to get in touch with you about them: a form, an email address, a phone number, etc.. You might also list examples of events you’ve done in the past along with photos from the events.

Here are some issues you may have to overcome for websites for author experts, and how to handle them:

You’re relatively unknown. Maybe within your field you’re a superstar, but that doesn’t mean a general audience knows about you. Or, maybe you’ve done significant research work, but haven’t been widely published. When you’re looking for exposure and positioning yourself as an expert without lots of photos, testimonials, and exposure about your work, I recommend getting out there and answering questions and sharing resources/news. This means seeking out people on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn who are looking for information pertaining to what you know, and becoming a helpful resource for them. You don’t need to spend tremendous amount of time on this, or give away all of your expertise for free, but establishing your authority this way helps you create an audience you can then tap to spread the word about your projects. And when people say nice things to you in return for helping them, capture those statements and share them.

You’re an introvert. Not everybody wants to get out there and sell themselves all the time. Sometimes you need to be in the right brain space for promotion, and if that’s true for you, consider a schedule for when you have “office hours”. Your office hours might include specific times you’re available for phone conversations, or specific times you’ll check in on social media. You can also disable comments on your website — just because you have a blog doesn’t mean you need to allow people to comment on it, and just because you have a public persona, doesn’t mean you have to make that persona available 24/7. It also doesn’t mean you have to be available to everyone — you can filter out what doesn’t pertain to your focus and your target audience so that the time you do spend is more meaningful.

Your career spans different disciplines or you have books on multiple topics. Sometimes I work with authors who have written multiple books, perhaps fiction or children’s books, and then later decide to publish a nonfiction book sharing their expertise. They often ask whether they can or should list all of their books on their website, and my answer is really about author branding. I’ll use an analogy: If you went to a restaurant because they advertised that they make the best Italian food in town, but when you got there you saw that their menu had some Italian food, but also Thai and Peruvian food, you might think, “that’s odd” — and you might also think, “they can’t really be good at all of these, can they?” And, of course, it is possible to be good at multiple, different things — we all know that — but is it possible to effectively sell multiple, different things to people as successfully as if you just focused on one at a time? Probably not. Unless what you’re really selling is that you’re good a selling multiple things, as opposed to the things themselves — but very few of us are the equivalent of Amazon.com. I encourage you to think about your target audience — which should never be “everybody.” If you’re focused on a particular group of people (and you should be), you can use words and images that will resonate with them. If you create a site that talks about you as an authority on a particular topic, for which you wrote a book, that’s a focused, sellable message. If you also write children’s books and crime novels, that’s great, just don’t add them to the same website. I understand that it’s easier and less expensive for you to have a single website about everything that you do, but it simply will not sell as well. And this isn’t about you as much as it is about your customers.

As an expert, I expect you can speak with enthusiasm and passion on your topic, and more than anything I list above, that’s the crucial ingredient to include in your author site. Sharing your passion goes a long way towards getting other people excited about what you’re doing, so don’t be shy about it — just figure out the way that works best for you to share your enthusiasm so that it doesn’t feel awkward, and your audience will grow in no time.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/author-websites-experts/feed/0Keeping Your New Website Updatedhttp://www.outboxonline.com/keeping-your-new-website-updated/
http://www.outboxonline.com/keeping-your-new-website-updated/#respondWed, 07 Oct 2015 07:35:10 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=7178There are a couple of elements to track when it comes to keeping your website updated: First is the technology. WordPress is constantly releasing updates of itself, as is true for any plugins you use, and potentially even your theme. Think of it just like the apps on your phone — just as your phoneRead more

]]>There are a couple of elements to track when it comes to keeping your website updated:

First is the technology. WordPress is constantly releasing updates of itself, as is true for any plugins you use, and potentially even your theme. Think of it just like the apps on your phone — just as your phone will let you know when updates are available, WordPress will too. And you want to stay on top of the updates because they often fix bugs, security issues, and add new (desirable) features. Not keeping your WordPress installation updated may result in an increase in the likelihood of your site being hacked by those people intent on doing such things, and no one wants to deal with that.

Second is your content. Ideally, you’ve identified when coming up with your site content in the very beginning what you plan to update frequently. The idea being that if you’ve planned for the most frequently updated items, you can design and build your site to make sure the focus is on the ease-of-use for updating those elements. For example: If you really want to be able to update a featured background image seasonally, then make sure it’s created to allow you to do that easily. Then, create a schedule for yourself to check in on your site to keep the content fresh and relevant. Whether it’s weekly, monthly, quarterly doesn’t matter as much as your commitment to doing it. You’ll benefit from additional searchability by adding new content, and you want your site visitors to know you’re actively invested in the project by keeping it fresh.

Think of your website as a project that’s never finished, as opposed to something you create and then leave. It’s more like a garden, and less like a chair.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/keeping-your-new-website-updated/feed/0Self Published Author Websites: DIY vs Professionalhttp://www.outboxonline.com/self-published-author-websites-diy-vs-professional/
http://www.outboxonline.com/self-published-author-websites-diy-vs-professional/#respondThu, 01 Oct 2015 06:15:15 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=2294Self-published authors wear lots of hats and spin many plates. They handle everything from the creation of their book through to publication, promotion and sales. And they’ve invested lots of time and money into their project. It’s a huge undertaking! They often have to determine where it makes sense for them to invest in learningRead more

]]>Self-published authors wear lots of hats and spin many plates. They handle everything from the creation of their book through to publication, promotion and sales. And they’ve invested lots of time and money into their project. It’s a huge undertaking!

They often have to determine where it makes sense for them to invest in learning how to do something themselves vs where it makes sense to outsource to an expert. And even when outsourcing something to an expert, they need to know enough about what they’re asking for to be able to ask the right questions.

As a web designer for authors, I help guide my clients through the considerations of what shape their website might take and why, but if you’re just starting out and don’t have the budget to hire a professional, it’s absolutely possible to get a great website by doing it yourself.

There are lots of options for creating a website / landing page yourself, like Squarespace, Wix or Weebly — or the more book-focused Booklaunch.io. Here’s why I don’t suggest those: it’s important that you have real control over your website. Services like those do everything for you — they host your site, they control what features you can use and provide templates for how it can look, they keep their platforms updated to the latest standards, and they provide a login to you to administer your site. And that’s one of the reasons they’re so successful — they take lots of decisions off of your plate and streamline the process of creating a site so that it’s easy. But what happens if all of a sudden they close up shop? (a reality of life on the internet) Is there an easy way for you to move your site elsewhere? What if there’s a widget or feature you want to add to your site but it isn’t supported by the platform?

Now, you may not be worried about any of that because your site has a limited life expectancy and those services offer more functionality than you need. In which case, great! Choose the one you like the best and you’ll have a great site in no time.

But if any of that concerns you because you’re in it for the long haul, consider a self-hosted WordPress site instead. You’ll have complete control over your domain name, your theme, your content, and your site’s features — you can easily export content from it or import content to it. You can use as many or as few features as you want, but it’s always nice to know you have the flexibility to change things if you want to add something new. And WordPress is an open-source platform, which means it’s developed by hundreds of people all over the world — it’s not owned by a single person or company that might go belly-up.

When you’re ready to move forward with building the site, here are my top tips for self published author websites:

Keep it simple.
One of my favorite mantras that I often share with clients is: “The more complicated you make something, the more complicated it will be.” And that’s always true with websites. As a self-published author who may already have a day job, you don’t want to be spending lots of time with complicated website features and layouts. Choosing a very simple theme or template will not only make it easier for you to create and keep updated, but also for your site visitors to use. What’s the minimum you’ll want to include?: Your book’s title, a short description explaining benefits to reading your book, an image of the cover, a purchase link, the author name, links to your social media sites, and contact info.

Choose an easy purchase model.
Sometimes, choosing to let someone else manage the purchase and fulfillment of your book sales will save you time and money in the end. If you’re only selling digital (ie: ebook) products that’s less important, but for physical copies consider that if you’re selling and fulfilling yourself you’ll need to store them, manage communication with the customer about shipping, and manage getting them sent via your favorite mail delivery service — all of which takes time, organization & effort. You can easily integrate PayPal for purchasing physical or digital copies of your book via a shopping cart on your site: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-simple-paypal-shopping-cart/ — or you can use a service like this and link to the purchase page from your website: https://gumroad.com/sell/books (or, of course, Amazon.com)

Engage.
Social media will be the way you’ll most likely get the word out about your project. The best social media platform to choose is the one you’re committed to using. It’s no use having a social media platform you’re not using, and it might even send the message that you’re no longer interested in the project to have a dead feed. So choose the one you like the best, and ideally where your target audience is, and contribute to it regularly. You can either put the feed from your social media platform on the site via a widget, or you can just link to it — the goal is to encourage people to follow you to engage in what you’re doing and share it with their friends. The benefit of showing the feed is that it shows your site visitors that you’re engaged in the project and allows people to follow you without leaving your site. It can also allow you to announce things and invite people to participate without you doing anything to the site itself — and anything where a single effort can have compound benefits is great. In addition, consider adding a mailing list signup to your site. MailChimp.com makes that very easy to do and is easy to use. You can then share things with your mailing list and your social platforms to maximize engagement.

How To Know When to Bring in an Expert

If you’re reading this, you’re someone interested in a DIY book platform, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to work with a professional in the future — perhaps once your project takes off. Here are some tips on how to know you’re ready to hire help:

You’re totally overwhelmed with your options.
There are undeniably lots of choices when it comes to launching a book and creating your platform. If you have trouble weeding out what you don’t need and narrowing down what you do, consider consulting with someone who will help you create a strategy that will work for you.

You don’t have enough time.
Whether your day job requires most of your time or managing all the plates you have spinning means that important things are falling behind, figuring out how and when you can delegate will help you regain time for all the things you need to do to be successful.

What you’ve done is no longer working.
A good professional will not only design and develop an attractive & easy-to-use platform for you, but will also strategize with you about what to include for your project, and most importantly, why. Someone with experience can help you think about your project in a different way and make suggestions you may not have thought of to make sure you’re focusing on what will help you meet your goals.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/self-published-author-websites-diy-vs-professional/feed/0Top Author Websites: The Importance of What You Don’t Needhttp://www.outboxonline.com/top-author-websites-the-importance-of-what-you-dont-need/
http://www.outboxonline.com/top-author-websites-the-importance-of-what-you-dont-need/#respondThu, 03 Sep 2015 21:24:42 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=5879Every author & publisher wants a top author website. That means they (understandably) want to stand out from the crowd, bring in a new audience, and enhance their brand. And some people approach these goals by throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the website. Photos and graphics and animations? “Sure!” – Lots of textRead more

]]>Every author & publisher wants a top author website. That means they (understandably) want to stand out from the crowd, bring in a new audience, and enhance their brand. And some people approach these goals by throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the website. Photos and graphics and animations? “Sure!” – Lots of text that isn’t designed to enhance your searchability or goals? “Absolutely!” – A blog without any idea of what you’re going to write about? “Why not?!” – Widgets of every size and description for your social media profiles because social media is important, right? “Of course!”

You get the idea.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re going about things the wrong way around. First, you figure out the critical question of WHY.

I was recently asked what I thought was the #1 mistake people make when planning their new website, and my answer was that they are focused on the wrong thing. Thinking about the details of things like what kinds of illustrations to use and what fonts and colors you like best, while important, should never come before creating a strategy for your platform. And a strategy doesn’t start with what it looks like, a strategy starts with WHY.

When you’re strategizing your best author website you first start with the critical question of your brand — who are you targeting and what do those people want? Once you know that, it’ll help you determine what should go on your website because you’ll be able to answer the question of why each component you want to add will serve them. It’s similar to coming up with a mission statement — who do you serve, how do you help them, and why are you better than their other options?

Here’s an example… let’s say you’re an author who writes books about mindfulness. In addition to writing, you like to teach people how to meditate and do regular workshops. You already know that you’re targeting people who are either new to mindfulness and want to learn more about it, or already know about it but want to enhance their knowledge.

You therefore know that your site should complement your message and be serene & focused. It should explain the basics of mindfulness, using key phrases to draw in a new audience via search, and offer the book as a solution to their desire for guidance. Perhaps the site has a blog so that you can build a repository of searchable content over time on themes of mindfulness or tips. It advertises your workshops and public events and not only makes it easy for people to get in touch with you to book you for an event, but also to sign up for a mailing list to keep up-to-date on when you have new events.

Here’s what it doesn’t have: lots of moving images, various social media profile feeds that say pretty much the same thing, lots of high-contrast color, difficult-to-find ways to get in touch with you, huge amounts of very detailed text, complicated/unclear navigation, no clear path to buy the book, a lack of a clear list of benefits, a message board, ads, etc..

Even if you have an amazing WordPress theme, even if it’s a theme designed for WordPress author websites & author landing pages, you don’t need to use all the bells and whistles that come with it. Ideally, you figure out what your site needs to do — and why — before you even get to the point of choosing or designing a theme.

So, as you’re planning to create a new top author website, or revamping your existing site to become one, make sure you’re thinking strategically about what not to include. You might be tempted by some of the cool stuff you see out there on the internet, but don’t let it sway you — focus on the WHY as the path to success.

]]>http://www.outboxonline.com/top-author-websites-the-importance-of-what-you-dont-need/feed/0Responsive Websites for Authorshttp://www.outboxonline.com/responsive-websites-for-authors/
http://www.outboxonline.com/responsive-websites-for-authors/#respondTue, 21 Jul 2015 06:43:47 +0000http://www.outboxonline.com/?p=2835You’ve likely heard that you need to have a responsive website. And you may already know what that means. But if you don’t, here’s the definition according to Wikipedia: Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience—easy reading and navigation withRead more

]]>You’ve likely heard that you need to have a responsive website. And you may already know what that means. But if you don’t, here’s the definition according to Wikipedia:

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

And having a responsive website is great for a variety of reasons that have to do with the usability of your site, and the ever-increasing number of people consuming web content on their phones and tablets.

But it’s never been more important than since Google announced that they were changing their search results to favor sites that are mobile friendly at the end of April 2015. This decision meant that even if your website looked great on a mobile phone before, if it doesn’t meet their criteria for what it means to be mobile friendly, you’ll be dinged in their search results.

You can update your WordPress theme (or hire someone to do it for you) so that it’s responsive, and you only have to manage one design.

You can change your WordPress theme to one that is responsive.

Responsive Websites for Authors: Why is this important for authors in particular?

Your author website is your calling card. It’s there to make it easy for your existing or potential audience to learn more about your book(s) and you. It’s there so that if someone wants to write an article about your topic it’s easy to get in touch with you. It’s there so that it’s easy to buy your book. It’s there to be easily searchable for you to reach new readers. For all these reasons it’s important for your site to be responsive. Now more than ever!

If someone is trying to do these things on a mobile device, you don’t want them to give up on you because your site is too difficult to use. And you certainly don’t want to turn down search traffic.

It’s not too late to get started with a responsive solution to your site — Google picks up on site changes relatively quickly these days — so pick a solution that works best for you and get started on your responsive author website to ensure your maximizing your efforts across device displays.